Monday, January 30, 2017

US Muslim ban ‘disgusting, disgraceful, inhumane,’ - Dublin imam

A spokesman for Ireland’s largest mosque in Dublin has described as “really shocking” that US President Donald Trump should place a 90-day block on entry to the US by people from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Libya and Somalia, claiming it would help protect Americans from terrorist attack.

Dr Ali Selim
of the Clonskeagh mosque in south Dublin described the President’s
actions since assuming office as being “not only anti-Muslim but
anti-everything. He is very much pro-confrontation at all levels.”

His banning of people from the
seven Muslim-majority countries selected “shows how limited is his
understanding of the national and international situation,” Dr Selim
said.

“People should ask to what extent
is he serving US interests by making these decisions. I believe he is
only serving his own interests. He doesn’t care about the US or others,
only himself.”

His executive order against those
Muslim-majority countries had also “given a platform to a lot of racist
behaviour in the US as illustrated in the burning down of a mosque (at
Victoria in southern Texas) on Saturday,” he said.

Shaykh Umar al-Qadri, imam at the mosque in west Dublin’s Blanchardstown, described the 90-day ban as “disgusting, disgraceful, inhumane” and of no help to refugees.

Noting that the ban came into
effect on Holocaust Memorial Day, he said we should never forget also
that the US banned Jews during the Holocaust.

“We should learn from the history of the Holocaust,” he said.

Instead of banning Muslims from
entering the US, President Trump “should ban bombing their countries!
That is how you minimise terrorism.”

He also noted how the “9/11 attackers were from Saudi Arabia which is excluded from the ban.”

Shaykh al-Qadri noted how new US
Vice President Mike Pence used to be opposed to such a ban on Muslims
and pointed to a tweet from then Governor Pence in August 2015 where he
said that “calls to ban Muslims from entering the US are offensive and
unconstitutional.”

Shaykh Al-Qadri noted, too, how “hours after Trump’s executive order “a Texas mosque was burned to the ground.”